As We May Think

1
As We May Think

• Vannevar Bush, 1945

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Vannevar Bush

• b. 1890 d. 1974
• Joint PhD, Harvard MIT, 1916
• President, Carnegie Institution, 1939-1955
• Chairman, National Defense Research Committee,
  1940
• Director, Office of Scientific Research and
  Development, 1941
• Chairman, Joint Research Development Board,
  1946-47

3

• Cofounder, Raytheon Co.
• Advisor to President Roosevelt
• Organizer or the Manhattan Project
• Envisioned the NSF
• Chairman, Merck Co., 1957-62
• Invented heart valves, high-speed microfilm
  readers, hydrofoil boats, differential analyzer
  (first analog computer)

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As We May Think

• Scope and range of discussion enormous
• Direction of scientific research after wartime
  aims (Manhattan project)
• Information overload
• Data storage, retrieval, analysis, input/output
• Language of optimism (philosophy of science as
  primarily beneficial)

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Information Overload

• Modern term, yet...
• The investigator is staggered by the findings
  and conclusions of thousands of other workers -
  conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp,
  much less to remember, as they appear.
• Shift repetitive tasks to machines

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Recording Data

• Advancements in photography - shrinking size and
  improvements in photo quality
• Often it would be advantageous to snap a camera
  and look at the picture immediately.
• Digital photography has surpassed his vision (no
  mechanical stage)

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Recording Data, text

• Speech-to-text synthesizers (Voder-Vocoder)
• Direct communication with brains electric
  impulses
• Current technology trails Bush

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Data Storage

• Memory was expensive
• Micro-photography display (projection)
• Examples phone network (VoIP?) department
  store (RFID tags?)

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Enter the Memex...

• Personal. intimate supplement to a users
  memory.
• Comprehensive. all books, records, and
  communications...
• Associative. any item may ... select immediately
  and automatically another
• Prefigures hypertext, PIMs, modern internet

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Questions

• Has bushs version of the future already been
  realized?
• Google
• HTML / XLinks
• Digitization of the culture
• Bushs ideas of input/output

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Questions, cont.

• Is Bushs Memex encompassed in the modern concept
  of a digital library? Are the goals for each
  compatible?
• Is Bushs optimism regarding the potential of
  technology justified by the past 50 years?